The capital of which state is designed in the form of a bird

If you look at this city from a height, then the silhouette of a bird, spreading its wings, clearly looms. Such an unusual layout became possible due to the fact that the city was built almost from scratch from scratch, so the architects managed to realize their wildest dreams. Today we will talk about the capital of Brazil - the city of Brasilia.

From the end of the 18th century until 1960, the capital of Brazil was the city of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the country's population and main economic activity was concentrated on the Atlantic coast of the country, while the regions located in the continental part of Brazil were still underdeveloped. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were the largest cities in the country, while São Paulo also claimed its title as the capital city. To put an end to this rivalry, as well as contribute to the development of the country's internal regions, it was decided to move the capital deep into the continent.

The final decision to transfer the capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia was implemented under President Juscelino di Oliveira in 1960, although there has been talk of this since the end of the 19th century. Lucio Costa was chosen as the chief architect of the future capital, and the highlight of the capital was its location on the shores of the artificial Lake Paranoa. It was the rugged coastline of this reservoir that served as the starting point for the planning of the entire city. The dam on the Paranoa River was built in 1959, in anticipation of the transfer of the capital, and was supposed to supply the capital region with electricity. But today, a hydropower plant does not provide all the needs of a growing metropolis. The lake frames the city on the eastern side, and on its banks are the administrative, sports and cultural buildings of the capital.

Over the 50 years that have passed since the capital was moved, a provincial town with a population of 140,000 has turned into an economically developed metropolis with a population of 2.5 million people. The authors of the plan to transfer the capital expected that the population of Brasilia by 2000 would not exceed 500,000 people, but this figure was reached already in the 1970th year. For this reason, the layout of the city has undergone some changes: areas around the central part of the capital with government buildings and fashionable residential areas have grown, where the majority of people from low-income groups live.

Interestingly, the author of the master plan of the future capital, Lucio Costa, claimed that he designed the city as a kind of huge butterfly. But someone sees in this image a jet plane, and someone sees the silhouette of a dove with outstretched wings. Be that as it may, the transfer of the capital has favorably affected the economic development and infrastructure of the central regions of Brazil.